


Russian Battle Prep

by writewithurheart



Series: Black Widow: The Redacted 5 Years [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Eve of battle, Friendship/Love, Gen, Heartfelt Talks, Male-Female Friendship, Natasha deserved better, Relationship Discussions, Russian Assassin Bonding, Unrequited Love, Vodka, a sort of prequel, and i just like Natasha and Bucky bonding, cause they've seen some stuff, or not?, pre-Infinity War battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:25:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writewithurheart/pseuds/writewithurheart
Summary: On the eve of the fight with Thanos, Natasha and Bucky share a bottle of vodka and stories of things they've remembered.





	Russian Battle Prep

**Author's Note:**

> So this a sort of precursor to a series that I'm planning on writing "Black Widow: The Redacted 5 Years" because the movie glossed over so much and Natasha Romanoff deserved so much better. I can honestly say I'm not sure what this is except that I wanted a bonding moment between Natasha and Bucky. So here's a thing and I hope you like it!

**Russian Battle Prep**

Natasha drops back onto the couch, eyes squeezed shut in exhaustion. She regrets the decision as soon as it’s made when her already bruised back makes contact with the couch which looked deceptively soft and is in fact akin to the rocks and concrete she was thrown into in the earlier fight. She groans into the empty room, but can’t summon the energy to move from the spot where she’s landed. 

“Heard the fight was tough.” 

Even flicking her eyes open is too much. Natasha doesn’t need to in order to recognize the voice. In her nightmares, it speaks in Russian. The dreams tend to be a soft Brooklyn accent. She makes an incoherent sound in response to Bucky’s statement. 

“T’Challa said I would be needed. Gave me an arm.” 

Nat huffs and opens a single eye to look at the former Winter Soldier staring at his own vibranium arm with awe. “Go find Steve, Yasha.” 

His eyes flick to hers, telling her to stop being an idiot. He lifts a frosty bottle instead and places it on the table next to two glasses. Nat’s body protests as she twists to sit on the couch and gesture at him to pour. 

“What are you doing here?” She asks as she takes the vodka from him. Eve of battle and all that. Shouldn’t he be with Sam or Steve or someone? 

He shrugs and toasts her before throwing back the vodka. It’s the good stuff. It tastes like home, familiar even as it burns. She considers James Buchanan Barnes as she leans back into the couch. Steve calls him Bucky, but Nat also has memories of him in the Red Room as Soldat, training the girls. She remembers him on missions as Yasha, in compromising positions, in pain. With the treatments Shuri’s been giving her, she’s remembering more and more. 

She killed her own triggers years ago. Memories were harder, both to remember and to reconcile. “You avoiding Steve?” 

He helps himself to come more vodka and sighs. “Maybe. I’m just not sure I’m ready.” 

Nat looks him over. She can see how tired he is in every line of his body. He’s not nervous for the impending battle: he’s weary. “You don’t have to fight, you know.” She offers the option because she knows no one else has. They’ve probably left it open, but Bucky was always going to fight for the greater good, even if it cost his soul. 

He looks down at his hands. “How do you do it?” 

“I’ve got red in my ledger,” she murmurs, an echo of a memory, of the promise Clint made her all those years ago: an offer to wipe out the red. “I figure, if I do good, it might help wipe it out.” 

He nods, and sighs. 

“But it’s different for you,” Natasha says. “You fought them first. You fought them even when they used you for evil. They had to wipe you out before they replaced you with a weapon. Me? I wanted to be useful. I willingly killed for the Red Room for years before I realized I was hurting people. So, yeah, if you don’t want to fight, you don’t have to.” 

He snorts. “I think we both know I have to.” 

“Not have,” she argues, but yeah, they both know that so long as Steve is on that field, Bucky will have his back. “Does he know you love him?” 

Yasha leans back into his own chair. “We actually doing this, Natalia?” 

Nat shrugs and sips her vodka. “Apparently.” 

He sighs and runs a hand over his face. “No,” he admits softly. “Back in Brooklyn, it was illegal and heck I wasn’t going to drag him down with me. Even if he didn’t feel the same, Stevie was so little back then and would have just picked more fights...he was my heart running around outside my chest. And then we were at war, and I fell off a train…” 

Natalia looks down into her drink and nods understanding. Combat relationships rarely last outside adrenaline fueled experiences. Look at her and Bruce. “And now?” 

“Now, I’m just trying to be human again.” He takes another sip. “He started mooning over that damn compass again.” 

Nat purses her lips. “I tried to set him up on dates. With women,” she clarifies. “When Sam showed up, I tried men. He’s stupidly polite and hard to read.” 

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “You ever ask him out.” 

“I don’t date.” 

“He’s got a thing for strong dames.” The line is all Brooklyn. Thick with an old accent that he shrugs off. “Maybe if you stopped lying to yourself…” 

“Fuck off, Barnes. We both know he’s easy on the eyes.” That’s all it is: attraction. Nothing more. “I’m not cut out for relationships.” 

“This ‘cause of the mess with the green dude?” 

She glares at him. “I don’t want to know how-”

He smirks. “I’m a spy, Natalia.” She scowls, unimpressed and he drops the act. “Sam told me.” 

“What does Sam know,” she scoffs. 

“Not much,” Bucky admits, “but enough for me to piece it together. He the first person you loved?” 

The glass lands on the table. “I’m too tired for this conversation.” Nat stares at the table but doesn’t move. It’s not fatigue, but ever since Clint was sent home under house arrest, she hasn’t really had someone to talk to. Just Sam, Steve and Wanda. They’re great but they’re not spies. They don’t understand it all the same way. 

She misses Clint. “Not the first person,” she says quietly. “I love Clint. Bruce was…” 

“Different.” Bucky nods sagely. “He’s your anchor. Your other half. But never romantic.” 

Natasha closes her eyes and smiles at that description. “He keeps me human.” 

“Seems like he’d be good at that from what I remember.” Bucky smiles back when she looks at him. 

She tilts her head at him. “That’s what Steve does for you.” 

He sighs. “Yeah. Which makes the whole love thing complicated. It’s not really sexual but I remember that it used to be?” He speaks slowly as if searching for the words, then shrugs. “For the most part I just want him happy. It was always a long shot. But we’re not talking about me.”

A breeze floats in from the open window and stirs the blonde hair hanging in front of her face. Nat brushes it back. “Fine. Yes. He was the first person.” 

“What happened?” 

She closes her eyes, remembers the press of her palms against Bruce’s chest before she destroyed what little they had built. “We were both monsters. We built trust, a foundation for more, and then I broke it. Turns out the only real monster was me.” 

“How did you break it?” 

Nat glares at him. “You’ve been spending too much time with Sam.” 

He rolls his eyes. “Probably.” 

Silence fills the space and Nat groans. Definitely too much time with Sam. “We needed the Hulk. Only way to get him was to put Bruce’s life in danger. So I pushed him.” 

Bucky nods. “You did what needed to be done.” 

“But he didn’t want to do it. I betrayed him, like I always do.” She picks up the glass again and lets the vodka burn as it slides down her throat. “Haven’t seen him since.” 

The glass she pours next is more filled than probably recommended. Her system can handle it, even if she keeps drinking the way she has been. Barnes says nothing. Just places his glass on the table and doesn’t bother to refill it. In petty revenge for making her talk, Nat pours him some more too. 

“I would have done the same,” he says easily. 

“Would you? Would you have pushed Steve to do whatever it takes to win?” She demands angrily. 

Barnes leans forward into her space. “That analogy won’t work, sweetheart. Steve would have jumped if that’s what it took, the stupid punk. No, in this analogy, I’m Bruce.” He stands. “Did you know I could have been discharged after Azzano? They offered to send me home with a medal. I’d been tortured for days, my whole body screamed in agony, things were happening that I didn’t understand, and I was lost. I was scared. I wanted to leave.” 

She frowns at her glass of vodka. 

“I wanted to run away.” Barnes sits on the coffee table and forces her to look into his eyes. 

“So why didn’t you?” She challenges. “It would have saved you a world of hurt.” 

“Because I loved him more.” Barnes shrugs. Like it was that simple. “You want to know how I resisted HYDRA torture for 20 years? Because of Steve. Because I didn’t want to kill. I never enjoyed war, the killing, the fighting. I was never in it for the adrenaline rush. I don’t feel compelled to fight everyone, but I will do anything to protect my people.” 

She stares blankly at him, not comprehending. “The Avengers protect the planet. It’s what we do.” 

Barnes shrugs. He looks at his prosthetic arm and twists it back and forth to look at it from different angles. “Your whole team is a bunch of sacrificial idiots tempered by somewhat rational crazies who try to keep you from killing yourselves.” 

“Where do I fall?” she asks with a hiccup laugh. “Sacrificial idiot?” 

“A little of both. Once, you might have been just rational crazy, but I think you spent a little too much time with Steve. Now you’ve got a little of the idiot in you too.” He chuckles. “Any team like yours needs that though. The impulsive do-gooders and the mother hens.” 

“Does that make you and Bruce the mother hens?” She’s not quite sure if she’s missing the analogy or if its some sort of American idiom that she still doesn’t understand. 

“Bruce is less a mother hen and more a lost ducking who found himself on a team of idiots and hens.” Barnes frowns. “Or something like that...I lost the analogy. The point is that Bruce is a third thing.” 

“You can’t possibly be drunk already,” she observes. She looks at the bottle and then at him. “Russians drink vodka like water.” 

“Not actually Russian, Natalia.” 

“Still not drunk.” 

He snorts. “Nah. Not drunk. Just a bad analogy. You and Bruce don’t fit. Maybe you wanted the to, but the truth is that you didn’t.” He picks up his glass and twirls it around. “My memories are still a little scattered, but I remember trying to love a man other than Steve. It worked for a while, but he could never understand why I kept getting into fights. It was the same with other girls. There were a couple who got it. Connie lasted the longest.” 

“What happened?” She’s curious. Couldn’t be easy to be in love with your best friend when Bucky grew up. 

“I got a well-deserved reputation as a lothario. There was never anyone who was more important than Steve, but we could have fun for a night.” James shrugs. “Then after everything that happened…” 

Natasha remembers the handlers that were a little too free with their touches, people who took advantage, who exercised vile habits on those under their power. She’d been as good as a sex slave at times and she knows the Winter Soldier didn’t have it any easier despite his terrifying reputation. She understands the need to reclaim your body before you can give it to anyone else. 

“It took me a long time to be ready.” She sighs. “Not that Bruce and I ever made it to that point.” Her body sags. “You’re saying we didn’t fit.” 

“I’m saying you never had a first love. It’s someone you love with all your heart until you realize you’re never going to fit.” He scratches at his stubble. “I could use a smoke right now.” 

“Didn’t you just go on about loving Steve?” Because the hypocrisy is real. 

He chuckles darkly. “I can see why you’re confused. My first crush was actually on Betty Goldman who babysat me and my sister when I was a kid. I followed her around, gave her flowers, learned charm trying to win her over because I thought I stood a chance.” 

“She broke your heart,” Natasha fills in with a sardonic smile. 

“Caught her necking with Jack Willoghby from down the block. Seven year old James was wrecked. Then he met Steve Rogers in an alley, defending a street dog from a bunch of kids that wanted to poke it with sticks and I realized there was nothing like that with Betty.” He grins. “Honestly, I can’t even remember what she looked like. Just the memory of a broken heart. I vaguely recall her laughing at something or another. But with Steve it was...different. Real.” 

“How can it be real if he didn’t know?” 

“It wasn’t real because of how he felt. It was real because I knew what love was. It was wanting someone so much that you would give your life for them. Believing in them and them believing in you. I’ve never doubted Steve loves me - he loves everyone - and I realized that romantic or not, it didn’t matter.” 

“Then I am a monster,” Natasha says. She forgoes the glass and takes a sip straight from the bottle of vodka. “No one could love a monster.” 

James stares at her and narrows his eyes. “You’re not a monster, mishka. No more than the rest of us.” 

“Then we’re both monsters, soldat.” She raises the bottle to him. 

“Steve would stand between you and the world-” 

“You just said he would do that for anyone.” 

“Who he believed in. He believes in you. He’d go to the ends of the Earth to protect those that deserve it.” Bucky grins at her. “I think this whole mess proved that.” 

Natasha sighs. “So your idea of comforting me is to tell me that I never really loved Bruce. Thanks. Good talk.” If her muscles were a little less tired she might have attempted to fling a knife at him. 

“If you were listening, mishka, you’d hear better. It’s not that you didn’t love him, but that he didn’t love you.” He reaches across the small coffee table and grabs her hand. “You’ve got a big heart even if you try to hide it. You will love again. Someone worthy of your heart.” 

She narrows her eyes. “Now you’re just buttering me up.” 

He shrugs. “You try not to be like Steve, but you care too much.” 

“The same is true of you.” 

He doesn’t deny it, just smiles blandly. “It’s like a disease. Highly contagious.” 

She laughs and it turns into a groan as her body protests. She closes her eyes. “We’re going to battle soon.” 

Bucky makes a noise of agreement. “Yeah. We are.” 

Natasha raises her glass and smirks at him as she says: “To love.” 

He chuckles and repeats the toast. They polish off the bottle, squished together on the couch after sharing stories in English that blurs into Russian until they fall asleep. Steve finds them hours later and drapes a blanket over them with an amused smile, happy that they had each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and let me know what you think! 
> 
> (unbeta'd)


End file.
